St. Patty's Pins

One of my favorite boards on Pinterest is my Holidays in School board.  I stick anything related to a special day in that one place.  Yes, I know there isn't as many pins in that folder as some of the other boards, but those pins remind me to also have fun in the classroom.  You can probably relate... with all the curriculum, sometimes it's not fun to be a teacher all the time.
With any of the below images, just click the picture to take you to the pin.  You can then go onto the original website, or you can repin/like it. :)

I made these for my class last year.  Of course I used a sandwich bag, but the label was super cute (and free).  

These I Have, Who Has templates come in handy.  
I used these Would You Rather prompts for my journal writes last year during the week before St. Patrick's Day.

My class used this information last year to learn more about Ireland.

This costs some money, but is super cute.

Totally doing this one this year. 

Love the idea of this art project.
Linking up with Brenda from Primary Inspired for her Linky Party.
Hope this helped someone.  :)  Have a great day!

Read More

Wednesday Writing - Gold Rush and State Test

Yesterday was the state writing test. You all know that I can't talk about the content of the test - so instead I will just tell you how glad I am to be back out of testing rows. It was only for 26 hours but that was 26 hours too long. No floor space stinks!!

See what I mean??? UGH!!

Talking about writing though, my kiddos finished their mining journals last week. It took 3 weeks of pulling teeth, but they did it, and they look fantastic.

I know they were proud of their hard work. They have grown so much as writers this year. To celebrate them I took Tara's idea and used her writing star bookmarks to "fill their buckets". I didn't have a ton of stars like she did, but I did have some of my shiny little stickers I stuck all over their bookmarks before I laminated them. That was a job my boys helped me with.

Just wanted to share my Gold Rush Mining Journal writing pack with you. It's 6 pages with a cover, all pages have mining clip art on them. I included the brainstorm page, in addition to the writing prompts my students used for each part of their story. 

In the process of creating it I found a new to me website that has tons of free, royalty free, no copyright needed clip art. At least they had gold rush clip art that was appropriate. :)

Hope you had a great day! I'm now off to Dr. Seuss night at school. :)

Read More

Tuesday Trade and Shout Out

I was offered a trade by Working 4 the Classroom for my Figurative Language Task Cards, so I took it.  She traded me this activity.
Angry Birds!!!Why, yes - what a trade!!  It's awesome and my kiddos loved it yesterday...I know, I know... I said I was done with Figurative Language, so I used it as review for Parts of Speech - she has both of them in one pack!!  
Let's try something new...Do you want to trade a product with me?  Of course it has to be your own personal creation, of something of similar value.  I will be more than happy to post about your product with a link back to your blog, store, or product.  I would love for you to mention my product on your own blog.  Email me to find out if a trade would work out at ilovemyclassroom@ymail.com    Hope you had a great day!! :)

Read More

Decorating for Easter/Spring

I love Easter.  I love spring, the pastel colors, the weather, and soon to be spring break....I love the real reason behind Easter.  I don't love the allergies that come along with it, but soon enough they will be conquered with my allergy meds.

 I picked up this yarn tree from Target.  It's in the Easter section.  I've been looking for a tree or branches or twigs since fall... but I couldn't find something that I loved... until now!

 

I have wanted to make one of those book trees for so long, but without the materials it stunk.  Because I want to change it out for the different seasons (see - the colors aren't totally pastel), for this month they are going to write their books on the outside of these plastic Easter eggs.  A little tape on a short piece of ribbon and voila!  I also picked up some $1 plastic buckets to store the eggs in.  One basket of eggs for books, another one to write student names on.
  

This is something super simple, but by now my kiddos are just about sick of seeing me reach for my cup of student numbers.  So, for this month I write their names on an egg and use a basket instead to draw names from.  At the end of the month, during our Easter party, we use the name eggs to have an Easter egg hunt in the classroom.  I hide them with a homework pass tucked inside, they find their own egg (it's a little more challenging then finding any random egg), and it's a little treat for them to add to their Easter baskets.    

Super cute - right?

I also prepped my Easter Egg banner to start using for this coming month.  I love using incentive banners in the classroom.  I started with them back in December, and since then it's been fun.  My kiddos have worked through Tara's Be Merry banner (December), my Snowman and Dream banners (January), and Love Bug (February).  Now it's Easter Egg time.  Little things in life, right?  Something so simple and my kids love to spell it out.  Spelling it out earns them a treat - just another little motivation tool.  I used to just put letters on the board to spell out a specific prize, but I like how flexible and cute the banners make my board look - as well as it's a reminder for the kiddos of what we are trying to spell.  

I've also been adding more things to my little stores.  

My newest little thing is a freebie writing pack for Easter.  

Same cute clipart as my Figurative Language Task Cards.  

I love this little chick and egg from MelonHeadz Illustrating.

Now - help me out a bit... I found these adorable containers at the Dollar Tree - bunnies, chicks, and carrots... but I have no clue what to put inside.  I want to do something regarding review for ELA and Math since that's what we will be doing this next month... but I just don't know what to fill them with.  Ideas anyone?  

Hope you had a great day! 

Read More

Sunday Store and Shout Out

The past 2 weeks my class has been working hard on identifying Figurative Language.  To wrap up the unit, I created these task cards for informal assessment purposes... but like usual I will then stick them into my ELA centers to use for review.  

I love spring everything - spring colors, spring clip art, and knowing spring break is only a few weeks away.  :) 

Included are 32 task cards reviewing idioms, similes, metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and hyperboles.  We're going to play scoot on Monday, we will then go over it whole class using the handy-dandy answer key, and they will turn them in for me to see how they did.

Shout Out TIME!

Last week Jessica from Joy in the Journey shared this Solving Shamrocks game with me. I was so excited about it! I printed it out right away, laminated, and then had to wait until it was technically March to play it.  Then Friday came and I pulled it out for the kiddos to use during our Dr. Seuss celebration!

Just wanted to share how fun it was with you.  The shamrocks have the multiplication problems on them, and the kids have to get through the board game the quickest.  The directions are included.

Jessica is also celebrating her 100 followers with a giveaway - I'm one of the people helping her out.  Make sure you go and enter to win!

Have a great day :)  

Read More

I'm a California Blogger and Currently

  Diane from Fifth in the Middle  created the state buttons for all blogs to grab.  There are also different region links to link up your blog.  If you click the link above or on the side bar it will take you to her blog's by state page so you can get your own.  
I'm also linking up again with Farley - for this month's Currently.  

I love Saturday mornings - who doesn't?  This morning we celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday by having green eggs and ham.  Only one of my kids actually liked it - though they were all excited about it as I was making it.  
So this is my family's version of Sam-I-am does not like green eggs and ham.

Thank you to my FB buddies for telling me that stress most likely caused my eye twitch.  It's amazing how it seems to happen when I raise my voice at school... I did finally email my doctor.  I also have been taking their suggestions to get more sleep, rest, drink more water, and eat bananas.  I still have it but it isn't as bad.

Today I have to take my boys with me to the party store - my oldest son is turning 9 soon and his party is next Friday night!  It's camping themed - so we are putting up the tent in the backyard and pulling out the stuff to make smores.  We have to pick up glow sticks and I don't know what else.  He wants me to make a smores cake too... we'll see...

As for laminating sheets, I'm sure you can relate.  For the longest time I did not have any color ink.  I'm not going to laminate something without color, so I didn't use it for a while... now I have ink and I've run out of pouches.  Ugh, the agony of an unused laminator!
Last up are my "E" likes, loves, and hates.  It's so hard to think of E-things... 
E like - Energy Of course I like energy.  I wish I had more energy.  It seems like I need so much more energy with this class this year than any other class I've ever taught.  As my VP told me the other day - I'm putting out fires this year.  So many many fires... but at least I know I'm making a difference in their lives.        
E love - Eagles

   I love eagles.  I've always loved eagles.  All the schools that I've worked with have had eagles as our mascot.  I know, weird?!? The verse that's been my "theme-verse" through life has been from Isaiah 40:31, "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."
E hate - Eels

Remember that scene from the Princess Bride - well to this day I still close my eyes when the eel attacks.  I have never met one personally, but I have a fear that has caused hate... all due to that one movie.  
Hope you have a wonderful Saturday!

Read More

Five on Friday!

Five for Friday! Today I'm linking up again with Doodlebugs Teaching to share my 5 random things from this week.

1. Birthday Party for Dr. Seuss

We celebrated today after we did our regular assessments. The kids wore their PJs, brought in their blankets, books, and pillows. They then set up shop and read. Sometimes by themselves, sometimes with a partner, sometimes full class. That was the morning, and this afternoon we watched a little movie complete with red fish and gummy eggs as a treat. This Readathon was also a technology fundraiser for my class. Here is the letter I sent home in case you are looking for ideas.

2. Figurative Language Rainbows

This week we continued on with figurative language, this time adding examples and color to a Figurative Language Rainbow. I am so proud of myself for figuring how to make a rainbow on PowerPoint.

3. Writing Writing Writing

The state writing assessment is next week and my students have been working hard on their paragraphs. I am so thankful that the Rainbow Edit is working for this group.  I think that alone has helped make them into better writers.  Now I don't have to remind them to include indents, capitals, punctuation, details, topic sentence, and spelling.  

4. Girl Scout Cookies

I want to personally thank the Girl Scouts at my school for providing ample opportunities to purchase boxes of cookies. I want to thank my husband for preferring a certain kind that I can't stand, and for being supportive in purchasing boxes for the cupboard and for the freezer.

5. Last but not least, I want to thank you for your support when I posted this picture on Facebook.

It was nice knowing it wasn't just my class that the moon affected this past week.

Hope you had a great week!

Read More